Twisted Threads (A Cape Trouble Novel Book 3)

by Janice Kay Johnson

  “Sleep tight, sweetheart,” Sean murmured, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

  She tried to respond, but it came out as an indecipherable mumble that made his chest vibrate with a silent laugh. She felt…odd, as if she’d been wound tight like a top for years and years, and suddenly freed to spin and spin until there was no more tension left. Head pillowed on Sean’s shoulder, Emily let herself sink into the beckoning darkness of sleep.

  A burbling sound brought her shooting out of sleep as fast as she’d fallen into it.

  “What…?” she mumbled, sitting up.

  “Phone,” the man in bed with her said.

  Sean. She was in his bed. Had made love with him. Emily grappled with all that as he fumbled for his phone and finally brought it to his ear.

  “Holbeck.”

  She couldn’t quite make out what the other person said, only that the caller was male.

  Whatever it was had Sean going on instant alert. After a minute, he said, “Good thing she didn’t dawdle getting out of there.”

  The caller asked something.

  “I don’t think I told anyone. Mrs. Kelley’s husband is retired. She was going straight home to pack and take off.”

  More talk. Sean said a few unrevealing things like “Uh huh” and “Yeah,” then, finally, “Still eight o’clock.”

  After dropping the phone on the bedside table again right next to his gun, he frowned into space for a minute.

  “Sean?”

  He shook his head. “Give me a minute.”

  His minute was spent visiting the bathroom. Her bladder made itself known. Clearly, she’d need to do the same before she could fall back asleep. But first she wanted to know who had called in the middle of the night and why.

  He came back, still naked, but grabbed his chinos from the floor and pulled them on. “I’m going to do a walk-around,” he said, and grabbed the gun.

  Emily whisked into the bathroom while he was gone. They met back at the bed.

  “No unexpected openings in any of your windows?” she asked, knowing she was going for frivolous to counter the fear that pressed at her ribcage.

  “Nope. All’s quiet.” Those lines in his forehead had deepened again. “I’m sorry you got woken up.”

  Emily climbed under the covers and tugged the covers high. “Who was that?”

  “My lieutenant.” He hesitated. “You knew Jeanette Kelley?”

  Her heartbeat picked up speed. “The caseworker? Yes. She was really nice. Oh, God. She wasn’t killed, was she?”

  He sat on the side of the bed. “No, but only because she followed my advice without wasting any time.”

  Emily remembered his side of the conversation. “She went into hiding.”

  “Right. If she’d packed in preparation for leaving in the morning…”

  Emily shuddered. “She’d be dead.”

  “Probably.”

  “Do you think she’ll be safe now?”

  “If we can catch this son of a bitch,” Sean said with quiet force. He gusted out a breath. “I don’t think I can go back to sleep. I’ll leave you in peace.”

  She reached out and laid a tentative hand on his thigh. The muscle tightened and she felt a warm curl low in her belly. Shirtless, he was an impressive sight. And…she could be wrong, but thought right now he needed her.

  “You could stay,” she suggested, voice momentarily throaty, then on a burst of embarrassment whisked her hand back under the covers. He was bound to think she was offering her body because she was scared to be alone.

  Sean planted a hand on the mattress and bent over her. The pale band of light from the bathroom cast interesting shadows on his face, but let her see a glint in his eyes. “You’re really awake, huh?”

  She nodded and let the covers slide down, freeing her arms. “If there’s something you need to do…”

  “I’d probably just brood.” He slid his other hand beneath her hair, cupping the back of her head. “My eggs can wait.”

  His eggs could wait? What? Then she remembered. Broody. Hen on eggs. Emily was smiling when his mouth captured hers.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “A couple of interesting pieces of news,” Wilcynski said, shortly after the morning meeting had convened the next day. He started by telling everyone who didn’t know about the break-in at the social worker’s empty house.

  A next-door neighbor had had back surgery two days before and wasn’t sleeping well. He’d gotten up to take more pain killers, then decided to read in the living room until they took effect so he didn’t keep his wife awake, too. Before he turned on the living room light, he looked out and saw a dark shape hop out of a window at the Kelley’s house. He’d called 911 immediately. As was common in a county as sprawling as this one, the responding unit arrived fifteen minutes later. The intruder was long gone.

  However, upon circling the house, the deputy saw that not only did a window stand open, a six inch square of glass had been carefully cut out of it to allow a hand to reach in. The glass had been left in the flower bed beneath the window.

  The neighbor who called had told him the Kelleys had loaded their car that evening and left for what they told him was a vacation. Nonetheless, the deputy called for backup, and, once another deputy arrived, they had gone in to be sure the house really was empty.

  “We knew Jeanette Kelley was likely to be on the guy’s list,” Jason remarked.

  “Yes, but I talked to her yesterday morning,” Sean said. “For him to go after her that same night?”

  “What if he was watching the DHS offices?” Rey Mendoza suggested.

  “Why would he?”

  “Is her address and phone number unlisted?”

  Wilcynski grabbed a local phone directory and Sean typed in a query on his laptop. The answer was yes; for obvious reasons, the Kelleys had chosen to stay off the grid.

  Not much liking coincidences, Sean still wasn’t satisfied with the explanation but supposed it was possible. The guy had been staking out DHS so he could follow Mrs. Kelley home. If he’d happened to see Sean going in or out, he might have feared she’d been warned. Damn sure he’d been following the news, which meant he’d have seen Sean in the background at the initial press conference and recognized him. Hell, the sheriff had named him as primary.

  But why would the killer had been watching DHS in the middle of the day?

  “You said you had a couple of interesting pieces of news,” he said, looking at the lieutenant. “What’s number two?” He was prepared to be pissed if this was something Wilcynski should already have shared with him. He’d woken up amazingly relaxed this morning, but not any more caught up on sleep.

  “I talked to Dean Driscoll this morning.” Driscoll was Wilcynski’s counterpart on the patrol side. “Deputies have reported a couple of sightings of the young veteran.”

  “Really? Where?”

  Wilcynski laid out a county map on the table. He’d already marked two red crosses on it, surprisingly far apart given Sean’s assumption that the homeless guy was on foot. Presumably homeless, Sean corrected himself. It was never smart to jump to conclusions. After handing the marker to Sean, the lieutenant said, “Not exactly sure where your encounter with him took place.”

  Sean added a cross, then studied the map. Larry stuck to Cape Trouble and environs; in contrast, this guy was ranging county wide at least.

  Thinking aloud, he said, “He’s either hitchhiking or he has transportation of some kind.”

  Daniel raised an eyebrow. “Say, a bike?”

  “If so, you’d think he’d be spotted more often.”

  “If he’s wearing camo, yeah. Otherwise, if he obeys traffic laws, why would a patrol officer pay any attention?”

  Unfortunately, Daniel was right. In Sean’s opinion, the Pacific Coast Highway, with too many curves and narrow shoulders, was dangerous for bike travel, but it was scenic enough to attract frequent group rides anyway. It would get worse come summer. Sometimes a hundred or more riders
would be strung out over a couple of miles of winding road shared by rubber-necking tourists. An occasional car versus bicycle duel to the death didn’t seem to deter anyone.

  Plus, there were plenty of serious bicyclists who lived in this area, seen in all weathers in their spandex or rain gear. Some of them commuted to work on their bikes. And if the veteran rode at night, maybe moved off the road when he saw a car coming…

  “Do you have dates and times for the sightings?” Sean asked Wilcynski.

  “I do. This one—” he pointed “—was yesterday afternoon.”

  Which placed the possibly homeless veteran within a mile or two of the Kelley’s house.

  “I want him picked up,” he grumbled.

  The lieutenant shook his head. “Neither of the deputies who saw him even got close. He seems to have eyes in the back of his head. Got to say, I don’t want one of them killed because he’s pursuing on his own.”

  Sean agreed, and suggested they move on.

  “I talked to the Fisks,” Daniel said. “He’s not a pleasant man. He told me what a slimy little worm Braden was, ‘accidently’ walking into the bathroom when Kimberly was showering, even peeking in her window. He got really angry, says he never hit the kid.”

  Sean glanced around the table to see expressions that were hard, even angry. They’d all dealt too often with abusers who invariably denied their behavior or justified it, and sometimes both, as Ed Fisk had done.

  “I had the impression he’s scared for his daughter, but doesn’t believe anyone related to Braden would have the balls to take him on.” His eyebrows twitched. “His words.”

  “It’s almost enough to make you hope the guy does,” Jason said in a hard voice.

  The lieutenant glared at him. “We protect the citizens of our county whether we like them or not. Got it?”

  The muscles in Jason’s jaw knotted, but he gave a curt not.

  No one else said anything. The truth is, they’d probably all been thinking the same thing he’d said aloud.

  Good time to change the subject. Sean looked at Daniel. “Did you ask about the computer?”

  “They didn’t have one. Do now so his wife can email with Kimberly. Apparently Kimberly had a laptop back then, but he doesn’t think she’d have let Braden use it. Doesn’t much matter, because she’s replaced it since. He says Braden went to the library a lot, so he may have emailed from one of those computers.” He shook his head. “Without knowing Braden or his brother’s email addresses, there’s no point in even contacting the server.”

  Sean was forced to nod agreement.

  “I have what may qualify as good news,” Mendoza told them. “Chief Lundy authorized around-the-clock surveillance of Mike Emerson’s house for the coming week, continuation to be dependent on events.”

  Jason looked interested. “I don’t suppose we have the manpower to do the same for county residents on the list?”

  Wilcynski’s glance was dismissive. He didn’t say, Grow up, baby cop, but he might as well have.

  Sean saw a flash of anger on Jason’s face, and didn’t blame him.

  When the silence continued, however, the lieutenant said grudgingly, “I’ll speak to Sheriff Mackay.”

  Hell, Sean thought, maybe he was just more conscious of budget realities than the rest of them. The sheriff’s department, like many police agencies, was always stretched thin given their inadequate funding.

  “I have my officers including Jasper Beach in their patrols at night, just in case the group home is a target,” Daniel said. “We’re doing regular drive-bys of the Fisk’s house, too.” Then he looked at Sean. “Do we have a plan for the girl?”

  “Deputy Walker is prepared to take her in.” The idea had come to Sean yesterday. He’d talked to her, then cleared it with the lieutenant. Kimberly Fisk was frightened enough to have agreed with the arrangement. And, damn, he’d be glad when she was safely tucked away. “I’ll move her today.”

  “Walker?” Mendoza asked.

  “A female deputy.”

  “Jason, have you had a chance to find out anything about Braden’s history before he went into the foster system?”

  “Just a beginning. He and his mother had an apartment in North Fork.” He mentioned the complex, and Mendoza nodded. “According to the manager, they’d only been there a few months. He’s supposed to find me the rental contract. I’m hoping she had to give references. Otherwise, you know what kind of turnover places like that have.”

  “You want me to take that over?” Mendoza asked.

  Jason shook his head. “Following up with the manager won’t take long.”

  Sean looked around. “Anything else?”

  Nobody lingered.

  Yesterday morning at this same time, Sean had felt optimistic. Today? They had nothing on this guy. Not even a name. There could be targets they hadn’t identified, and several they had identified remained vulnerable.

  And then there was Emily.

  *****

  “I thought it was all over,” the girl in the back seat whimpered. “I mean, he’s dead.”

  It was hard to know how to offer comfort, Emily thought. She understood why a rape victim would have been relieved that her attacker was dead rather than in prison. Putting the assault behind her would be even harder if she had to worry about the possibility of the rapist getting out of prison someday. Since Braden Wilson had been tried as a juvenile, that day wouldn’t have been far down the road.

  Kimberly Fisk was so sunk in self-pity, however, she mostly ignored anything Sean or Emily said. Plus, she kept repeating herself. She was having trouble believing this could possibly be happening to her, of all people in the world.

  Of course, Kimberly was only nineteen, Emily reminded herself. A teenager. Hormones equalled self-absorption.

  As relieved as Emily had been when Sean suggested picking her up from the gallery so she could ride along with him to pick up Kimberly and transport her to a ‘safe house’, she was beginning to wish she’d declined. Unfortunately, Newport was a fair drive from Cape Trouble, especially given the two-lane highway. Sean had growled under his breath several times when they’d gotten stuck behind someone driving really slow, with no opportunity to pass until they reached a straight stretch of road.

  The lure to persuade her to accompany him was his promise when they were done to take her to the gym so they could both use the treadmill. Running on the beach would have been better, but despite the lack of rain he’d shaken his head tersely without telling her why that wasn’t an option. She hadn’t argued.

  Emily saw Sean glance in the rearview mirror at their passenger. “Kimberly, your father said you recently bought a new laptop.”

  “Well…yeah.” Her expression suggested he was dumb or maybe just old. “I mean, I couldn’t go to college with my old one.”

  Sean rolled his eyes at Emily, who hid her smile.

  “Did you ever let Braden use your computer?”

  “No!” Her eyes narrowed. “He’d better not have.”

  “Any chance you held onto the old one?”

  “Why would I?” After a minute, she added, “I know you aren’t supposed to throw computers in the garbage, but since mine was just a laptop, that’s what I did.”

  His fingers tightened on the steering wheel, a minor symptom of his exasperation. Or was it frustration, because the investigation seemed to have stalled again?

  Behind them, Kimberly mumbled, “This is completely unreal. I’m going to get behind in classes, and I have a boyfriend! I don’t understand why I can’t tell him where I am. He could visit…”

  “And the man who wants to kill you could follow him.” Sean didn’t pull his punches. “Kimberly, you can’t tell anyone at all where you are. Not your parents, not your best friend.” He sounded all cop, grim and inflexible. “Do you understand me?”

  “Yes!” she cried. “But it’s not fair!”

  Fair? Only the young could say it that way. How fair had it been that Tom and Cody h
ad died the way they did, as unavoidably and unexpectedly as if they’d been struck by a lightning bolt? That boy who’d been caught by a huge, rogue wave on the beach a few months back; was it fair he’d died?

  But Emily’s flare of anger died quickly. Kimberly had been raped when she was only seventeen. And she was right; what was fair about that?

  Trying to calm herself, Emily turned her head to look past Sean at the endless gray of the Pacific Ocean. With the cloud cover, she could hardly tell where sky met water. It was sometimes possible to see a freighter off the coast, or more rarely even a humpback whale, but not today.

  “We’ll catch this guy,” Sean said. “All you have to do is be patient.”

  “I still don’t understand why you think Braden’s brother would come after me,” Kimberly said. “I mean, he’s the one who hurt me, not the other way around.”

  “During the trial, Braden claimed the sex was consensual.” Ignoring her sputtering protest, he continued, “I think we can assume that’s what he told his brother as well. Braden may not have had the chance after the arrest to contact his step-brother. But there ended up being quite a bit written about the trial. If the brother bought into everything Braden had been telling him, he’d believe his claim that it wasn’t rape, too. If he’s convinced you lied to the police and in your testimony, to his point of view, that makes Braden’s death your fault.”

  “He deserved to die!” she spat, with a vitriol that had Emily turning her head to see her face. “I’m glad he died.”

  She was not a pretty young woman at that moment, her face twisted with hate. Emily understood her feelings and even sympathized, but also found she didn’t really like Kimberly Fisk. She could very well have been her parents’ little princess, disdainful of the strange boy they had imported into her home. Emily wondered whether she’d made up stories about Braden to be sure her daddy never favored him instead of her.

  Emily shook her head. She was making big assumptions. Not being fair.

  That thought had her mouth curving humorlessly.

  It was a huge relief to finally arrive at the log cabin in the woods where the female deputy Sean had mentioned lived. Emily liked Rebecca Walker on sight. She exuded warmth that proved irresistible. Emily bet she was really good in her role as police negotiator. Kimberly immediately latched on to her, probably certain Rebecca would understand her woes when those two awful people who’d driven her here from Newport didn’t.